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jeron14-Oct-21 7:30

jeron1

4-Oct-21 7:30

God forbid it should happen to CP! Roll eyes | :rolleyes:

"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
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megaadam4-Oct-21 8:20

megaadam

4-Oct-21 8:20

God forbid it happens to TotD!!

"If we don't change direction, we'll end up where we're going"

jeron14-Oct-21 9:59

jeron1

4-Oct-21 9:59

Now that's just crazy talk!

abmv4-Oct-21 8:09

abmv

4-Oct-21 8:09

The end of the world is neigh..rejoice all for now we are free....

Caveat Emptor.

"Progress doesn't come from early risers – progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things." Lazarus Long

megaadam4-Oct-21 8:19

megaadam

4-Oct-21 8:19

~~WhatsUp~~ WhatsDown
FTFY!

"If we don't change direction, we'll end up where we're going"

kmoorevs4-Oct-21 12:12

kmoorevs

4-Oct-21 12:12

megaadam wrote:
WhatsDown

I like it! A paid service that shows what services are down at any moment! It's exactly what ~~suckers~~ people need. If I know one thing, it's that bad news sells better than good news! Laugh | :laugh:

"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
"Hope is contagious"

Amarnath S4-Oct-21 17:29

Amarnath S

4-Oct-21 17:29

Never thought that there is one switch which controls all three at once.

Kornfeld Eliyahu Peter4-Oct-21 19:24

Kornfeld Eliyahu Peter

4-Oct-21 19:24

I feel good... Didn't know it happened until this morning seeing on the news... And went to bed just before midnight...

"The only place where Success comes before Work is in the dictionary." Vidal Sassoon, 1928 - 2012

Dar Brett4-Oct-21 22:06

Dar Brett

4-Oct-21 22:06

I heard about this on the radio driving to work this morning.

Thought off the Day

megaadam4-Oct-21 5:44

megaadam

4-Oct-21 5:44

So this is what Brexit was all about ?

"If we don't change direction, we'll end up where we're going"

PIEBALDconsult4-Oct-21 5:50

4-Oct-21 5:50

More like Welshing on an agreement.

OriginalGriff4-Oct-21 5:54

OriginalGriff

4-Oct-21 5:54

Show me a copy of the contract with my chop on it! Big Grin | :-D

"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
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PIEBALDconsult4-Oct-21 5:57

4-Oct-21 5:57

Lamb chop? Yummm!

OriginalGriff4-Oct-21 5:53

OriginalGriff

4-Oct-21 5:53

Well, I voted for TotDexit and since I was the only voter it passed. Laugh | :laugh:

Mind you, it showed me I'm more of a habitarian that I thought I was - there has been a "tickle" at the back of my mind for over an hour saying "you're late" ...

PIEBALDconsult4-Oct-21 5:55

4-Oct-21 5:55

It gets easier each day. Stay tough.

Who uses octal?

Marc Clifton4-Oct-21 3:25

Marc Clifton

4-Oct-21 3:25

Quote:
Octal is used in aviation -- transponders in aircraft transmit a code, expressed as a four-octal-digit number, when interrogated by ground radar. This code is used to distinguish different aircraft on the radar screen.

I didn't know that!

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PIEBALDconsult4-Oct-21 3:31

4-Oct-21 3:31

OpenVMS user numbers.
Actually I guess I should confirm that that's still true.

Edit:

/UIC=value

     Specifies the user identification code (UIC). The UIC value is
     a group number in the range from 1 to 37776 (octal) and a member
     number in the range from 0 to 177776 (octal), which are separated
     by a comma and enclosed in brackets. Digital reserves group 1 and
     groups 300-377 for its own use.

modified 4-Oct-21 10:36am.

Mike Hankey4-Oct-21 3:55

Mike Hankey

4-Oct-21 3:55

No wonder DEC went under. Smile | :)

The less you need, the more you have.

Even a blind squirrel gets a nut...occasionally.

JaxCoder.com

charlieg4-Oct-21 3:59

4-Oct-21 3:59

Not quite accurate. DEC went under because the dinosaur management was actually threatened by an internal group's skunk works project called Alpha (RISC based architecture). Management felt threatened by Alpha (more money in big iron), so they did their best to kill it. Had they done with Alpha, Sun would have never existed.

Filed under: Adapt or Die

Charlie Gilley
<italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape...

"Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759

Mike Hankey4-Oct-21 4:02

Mike Hankey

4-Oct-21 4:02

I loved DEC equipment and while I programmed i worked exclusively with DEC equipment.

Was sorry to see them go.

The less you need, the more you have.

Even a blind squirrel gets a nut...occasionally.

JaxCoder.com

charlieg4-Oct-21 4:05

4-Oct-21 4:05

You and me both. I worked for them for 5 years. Toward the latter part of my time, the $$ issues and the lackadaisical attitude toward business issues was stunning. So much talent.

PIEBALDconsult4-Oct-21 4:15

4-Oct-21 4:15

Maybe you need to re-read the DEC Alpha history.

Two of my OpenVMS systems are Alpha.

charlieg4-Oct-21 4:19

4-Oct-21 4:19

I only know what I saw in the field (where I was). One of my co-workers would hit all the trade shows, and you could see the Sun people checking the heat output of the Alpha. They could not believe how cool it would run.

I worked at an Air Force base in a support role and lived through the terrible days of the VAX 9000 - let's go after IBM - fiasco. Simultaneously, the midrange systems (VAX 6xxx) kept getting faster and faster, and the software licensing model became a fiasco. The software upgrades were 2x the hardware costs.

My customers finally just gave up. If we had had the Alpha when it was first talking about in the company, I truly believe DEC would still be around.

markrlondon4-Oct-21 4:55

markrlondon

4-Oct-21 4:55

Well, Alpha wasn't completely ignored as I recall. At one time (and I do not presume to tell you stuff you already know) it was possible to buy Alpha-based PC motherboards and run NT4 on them (at the time NT4 was growing massively in popularity). I saw these motherboards and was hopeful for whole new ranges of new Alpha-based NT4 PCs, just like we saw ranges of x86 PCs.

But it didn't happen.

Like so many new technologies, I think it was the old chicken/egg problem. Alpha-based PCs weren't going to take off until there were drivers and application software compiled for Alpha, and no one was going to write NT4 drivers or compile their Windows application code for Alpha until there was a decent hardware base to make it worthwhile.

It seems to me that the very same problem put paid to MIPS and PowerPC NT4 versions and computers based upon them.

Emulation just wasn't fast enough in those days to solve the lack of applications problem, although I seem to recall that the non-x86 NT4 versions did include x86 emulation for apps.

It turned out that x86 hardware was simply good enough.

I wonder if greater Linux maturity would have allowed Alpha, MIPS or PowerPC to do better in the PC marketplace back then. I suspect not. Linux on IBM Power ISA is a thing now, of course, but it's still niche, despite attempts to popularise it.

charlieg4-Oct-21 10:37